Psychologist warns against teens self-diagnosing via TikTok
- Poll: 55% of students use social media to self-diagnose
- Experts warn of dangers and urge professional evaluations instead
- Parents are advised to engage children, seek licensed professionals
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(NewsNation) — Some doctors and parents are raising alarms about a rising trend of teenagers self-diagnosing like autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression based on videos they see on the popular social media platform TikTok.
A recent poll by the Adweek Research Center found that 55% of students use social media to self-diagnose, while 65% of teachers report witnessing this phenomenon in their classrooms.
“They could be seeking treatment that’s not correct, medication that’s not correct,” Dr. Don Grant, national advisor of healthy device management for Newport Healthcare, said during a Saturday interview on “NewsNation Prime.” “They could be adopting performative behaviors that then become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Grant expressed particular concern about teens self-diagnosing complex conditions like personality disorders, which require professional evaluations and cannot be reliably identified in adolescents based solely on online videos and unvetted advice.
“If you are not trained, if you do not have any background, if you do not have the licensing, the clinical training and you’re just giving out diagnoses or advice, that’s just not okay,” Grant said. “And in a lot of states, it’s illegal.”
He pointed to examples of blatantly unqualified sources on TikTok equating innocuous behaviors like ear-wiggling to having ADHD as particularly egregious cases of misinformation.
Younger Americans are generally more open to talking about mental health, but they may not have the resources or opportunities to go see a professional, so they turn to what they know.
To counter this troubling trend, Grant and other experts urge parents to have open and judgment-free conversations with their children about social media self-diagnosis.
“As digital immigrants, we kind of let them be the virtual canaries in the digital coal mines,” Grant advised parents. “If you don’t understand it, play the digital immigrant card…Just ask them and say, ‘Tell me about this.'”
If legitimate concerns arise from these discussions, experts stress the importance of seeking professional evaluations from licensed mental health providers to determine if clinical investigations are truly warranted.
“Otherwise the outcomes again could be very dangerous,” Grant cautioned.
